


Little Warriors

by lilbluednacer



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Mostly Fluff, Stydia through the years, go figure, inspired by eyeshadow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 20:09:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15758817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilbluednacer/pseuds/lilbluednacer
Summary: They've always been warriors.





	Little Warriors

**Author's Note:**

  * For [writergirl8](https://archiveofourown.org/users/writergirl8/gifts).



> Rachel and I talking about our mutual love of eyeshadow somehow led to this, apparently I find makeup very inspiring.

The colors laid out in front of her are in every shade of every rainbow Lydia could possibly conceive of - bone and taupe and beige and brown, shimmery pale pink, shocking bright violet, blue with chunks of multicolored glitter. There's no one else perusing the makeup department, Lydia lost track of her mother in the shoe section ages ago and wandered over here, enticed by all the bright colors and open samples.

Lydia's seen boxes of eyeshadows in a drawer of her mother’s vanity but nothing like this, shades of every color possible, an entire wall of different colored shadows as high as her head next to the makeup counter. She presses a finger into a sample of pink eyeshadow and smears it over the back of her hand, holds it up to the light to see how it shimmers. It looks so pretty she does it again with the purple, swirling the colors around on her hand until it looks like the sky as the sun is setting. She goes back in for blue, painting her hands until they're saturated, covered in swirling shades of blues and pinks and purples. 

“Hi there!” A woman's face pops over the counter. “Do you like the makeup?”

Lydia stares up at her, she looks like the ladies on the covers of her mother's magazines, glowing skin and shiny hair and full lips painted bright pink. Lydia nods shyly, dipping her fingers into a pot of silver glitter. “It's so pretty.”

The woman smiles at her and walks around the counter, crouches down next to Lydia so they're the same height. “It is pretty! Would you like me to show you how to put it on?”

Lydia stares at her, awestruck. “Yes please.”

The woman smiles and holds her arms out, and Lydia lets her pick her up and deposit her on a high black stool. She watches as the woman selects a pot of shimmery beige eyeshadow and a little brush. “How old are you?” she asks conversationally, swiveling the stool so it's facing a mirror.

“Seven and three quarters,” Lydia says proudly.

“Wow, you're almost a teenager! Okay, close your eyes for me sweetie.” 

Lydia obeys, sighing at the touch of soft fingertips against her cheeks. A brush sweeps across her eyelids and she does her best not to blink, relishing the undivided attention and the gentle hands on her face.

“Okay, you can open! Hey, where's your mom, is she shopping?”

“Buying new shoes.” Lydia opens her eyes, in the mirror the skin around her eyes sparkle like fairy dust but it's subtle, really only appearing when she blinks. “Can I have more please?”

The woman laughs. “Sure!” She bends her head down towards Lydia. “Do you want purple? That's my favorite.”

“Me too! Did you know to make purple you just mix red and blue?”

“Very good, someone knows her colors!” The woman leans over and selects an eyeshadow, holding it out for Lydia's approval - a deep velvety plum.

“Can I put it on?” Lydia asks.

“Sure!” She hands the pot of eyeshadow and the brush over to her.

Lydia examines her face in the mirror. “Can I put it anywhere I want?”

“Of course! Great artists always follow their instincts,” the woman says with a wink.

Lydia dips the brush into the shadow and picks up enough pigment to saturate the bristles, and looks at herself in the mirror, thinking a picture she saw in a copy of National Geographic, women with bright lines of paint across their faces. She carefully draws a thick purple line from the base of her cheekbone up to her temple and repeats it on the other side, and looks to the makeup artist for approval.

“Very creative, I love that,” she says warmly. “You look like a warrior!”

“Lydia!” She turns on the stool, her mother is rushing over to her, a cardboard shoe box tucked under one arm. “Lydia, I told you to wait for me by the shoes, I've been looking for you for ten minutes!”

“Sorry,” she murmurs, taking her mother's hand to hop down from the stool. “Look, don't I look pretty?”

Her mother lets out an annoyed sounding sigh. “Of course you do, but you're too young for makeup sweetie.” 

She reaches for a pack of wipes sitting on the makeup counter and before Lydia can stop her she grabs Lydia's face and rubs it all off, balls up the purple streaked wipe and tosses it in the wastebasket by the stool. “Come on, we're going to be late and then Daddy is really going to yell at Mommy, we don't want that right?”

Lydia shakes her head, blinking back tears as her mother reaches for her hand. “Thank you,” she murmurs to the woman, who’s been watching the exchange silently.

The woman smiles and kneels down next to her. “My pleasure. Hey, you want to know a secret?”

Lydia widens her eyes. “Yes!”

The woman glances up at Lydia's mother, who’s fingering a tube of lipstick, and gives Lydia a smile. “Warriors are still warriors even when they don't have their warrior paint on.”

*

“What's this for?” Stiles picks up a contour palette sitting on her vanity.

Lydia looks up from her copy of Much Ado About Nothing from where she's sitting cross legged at the end of her bed. “It contours. Are we studying or what?”

He spins the palette around in his palm. “Contours what?”

Lydia sighs and flips her book shut. “Your attention span really is abysmal.”

“Hey, I have ADHD, don't shame me. I lasted through forty-five minutes of annotating, that's a new record!”

“True,” she admits, and hops off her bed. “Give me that, unless you actually want to learn what contouring does.”

Stiles gives her a cheeky grin. “Since when don't I want to learn something?”

Lydia raises an eyebrow at him and points to the white upholstered stool in front of her vanity. “Okay, sit then.”

“Why?” he asks hesitantly

“You said you wanted to learn,” she points out.

“Okay.” Stiles drops down onto the stool and tilts his face up to her. “Do your worst.”

She opens the palette and dips the pad of her finger into the cool toned brown cream shadow. “So you can use a brush but actually fingers blend really well, unless you don't want me to…” she trails off, her cheeks flushing horribly.

Stiles blinks up at her, big innocent brown eyes and it almost hurts, how much he trusts her. “You can touch me.”

“Hold still.” She keeps her voice level and touches the tip of her finger to his face, feeling more than hearing his quick intake of breath at her touch.

She draws lines underneath his cheekbones, where he still hasn't filled out after the nogitsune, Allison, a summer of grief. She doesn't like it, how fragile his bones feel to her, and she very carefully draws lines down the sides of his nose and his temples. She cleans off her finger with a wipe and rubs it into the light colored shadow, taps her finger down the bridge of his nose and his cupid’s bow, his cheekbones, above the arch of his eyebrows, before setting down the palette.

Stiles looks at his face in the mirror and exaggerates a frown, the lines she drew wrinkling into his skin. “This is contouring?”

Lydia swallows back a laugh. “Now we blend.”

She leans over him and rubs her fingers into his skin, feeling the heat of it against her fingertips. She smooths her thumbs down his nose, sweeps them across his cheekbones, his forehead, until all the makeup is blended in. He really doesn't look much different, she used a light tough, but she's startled at how beautiful he looks up close - the upward tilt of his nose and the flutter of his eyelashes, the warm amber color of his eyes.

He blinks up at her, her hands resting against his cheeks, and Lydia realizes their faces are so close their noses are almost touching.

“Well?” His voice is so quiet, like he's afraid to disrupt the moment. “How do I look?”

Beautiful enough to kiss, she thinks, and steps away, before he can read it on her face, the way he always seems to know how she's feeling before she knows it herself.

“Pretty,” she jokes flatly, and goes back to her book.

*

“Hey Lydia, you almost done? We're gonna be late.” Stiles leans in the doorway of their bathroom, dressed in the dove grey button down she picked out for him and a pair of black dress pants.

“Never rush an artist,” she chastises, turning back to the mirror to apply mascara.

Stiles walks into the bathroom and comes up behind her, resting his hands on her bare shoulders. “You look very pretty.”

She glances at him in the mirror for a second before adding a second layer of mascara to her eyelashes. “Thank you.”

“I like the sparkly stuff.” He gestures loosely at her face, her eyelids are covered in shimmery silver eyeshadow.

Lydia caps her mascara, watching the way her engagement ring twinkles in the light. “Did I ever tell you about the time I got lost in a department store when I was a kid?”

He runs his fingers gently through her freshly curled hair. “How'd that happen?”

“My mom was shoe shopping and I got bored, wandered off. I ended up in the makeup department finger painting with eyeshadow.” She laughs at the memory. “This makeup artist took pity on me, showed me how to put it on. She let me draw purple eyeshadow all over my face. I probably look ridiculous but she was so nice about it, she told me I looked like a warrior.”

He plays with the thin black strap of her dress. “You are a warrior,” he says quietly.

She turns sideways so she can look over her shoulder at him. “So are you.”

He gives her a crooked smile. “Ready?”

“One second. This warrior needs her war paint.” She grabs a brush and dips it into soft gold highlighter and sweeps it across her cheekbones. She hesitates for a moment but then she dips the brush into the highlighter again and holds it out to Stiles.

He nods and holds very still, and Lydia carefully brushes a light layer over his face, almost imperceptible, laughing when he wrinkles his nose. “There,” she says, putting the brush down. “Okay, all ready.”

He flutters his lashes comically at her. “Do I look pretty?”

“No.” Lydia cups his cheeks and kisses him very lightly so she doesn't smudge her lipstick. “You look fierce.”

*

“Stiles!” Lydia locks the front door shut behind her and sets her leather work bag down on the entry table. “Addie! Where are you guys?”

“Upstairs!” Stiles calls out.

Lydia steps out of her heels and lines them up in the hall closet, yanks down the hem of her sky blue shift dress as she begins to climb the stairs. She loves this, coming back to the house they've made into a home together, him, their daughter, two people she loves with a ferocity she didn't know she was capable of before them. Stiles greets her at the top of the stairs, his cheeks are smeared with mauve eyeshadow and silver glittery highlighter.

“What happened to you?” she asks, leaning in for a kiss.

“Mm, hey.” Stiles lingers against her mouth. “Don't get mad, I let Addie play with your makeup.”

“Stiles” -

“Just the drugstore stuff, promise.” He reaches down and threads their fingers together. “I hid all your Chanel in my drawer, she never looks there.”

Lydia lets out a sigh of relief and squeezes his hand. “Best husband ever.”

“Mommy, Mommy!” Addie comes flying out of the doorway to the master bedroom, her auburn hair streaming behind her, red lipstick all over her face. “Look at me!”

“Hi baby.” Lydia crouches down on the floor in front of her daughter and examines her handiwork. “You look very pretty.”

Addie has Stiles’ upturned nose and Lydia's wide green eyes, a perfect combination, her face spitting into a grin at the compliment. “I'm a warrior! We're warriors!”

Lydia smiles back, reaching up to brush a chunk of glitter off of Stiles’ chin. “Yes, we are.”


End file.
